But It Breaks Your Heart
by Potterworm
Summary: You never hated him. If anything you loved him as much as your own son. But that was why you had to force it out of him. Because it would kill him. Just like it killed Lily. *A one-shot from Petunia Dursley's perspective in second person point of view.*


**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Summary: **You never hated him. If anything you loved him as much as your own son. But that was why you had to force it out of him. Because it would kill him. Just like it killed Lily.

[a one-shot from Petunia Dursley's perspective in second person point of view]

**Betaed by: **corpus_christi (Thank you so much for your help.)

**But It Breaks Your Heart**

**By Potterworm**

You listen to the silence. The bittersweet silence coming from the cupboard under the stairs. You told the freak to be quiet, and so he was. But the quiet breaks your heart.

You turn away when Vernon shoves him. You try not to see the betrayal shining in his emerald eyes. You try, but the betrayal breaks your heart.

When he comes to your room for the first time during a thunderstorm, you try so hard to push him away quickly. He is 4 years old, and the last few years have been awful. He comes up to you with a whimper and hugs your leg. He whispers "Auntie," and his mop of black hair doesn't succeed in hiding his tears.

You whimper a little too then. But you see him reach to you, and you push him away. He stumbles to the ground. You resist picking him up and cradling him in your arms. That's what you would do with Dudley, but he's different. You have to treat him differently, for him to live. You want him to live, so you have to hate him.

"Go to your cupboard, freak," you choke out after a minute too long. He looks at you with confusion. He always was observant for a child. He notes the hesitation, but he leaves. Just like you always made him.

He never comes to your room for comfort after that. And he begins to realize your dislike for the first time. (Vernon's dislike of him never was a doubt).

It kills you that he stops coming to you. It kills you that he resents you, if ever it was possible for a four year old to resent someone. Maybe it is not resentment. Resignation is a better term. He is resigned to your actions, for he cannot change them.

You also become resigned. Resigned to loving him from a distance. Just a few more years. When he turns eleven, you can explain everything. Vernon will stop hating him if he isn't a freak. And you can start loving him, because after he turns eleven, _it _can't claim him. _They _can't take him away, just to kill him. So, you avoid him, and ignore him. To squash it out of him.

And so it would be for many more years.

But when a plate first shatters across the room from where he yells, you realize subtle dislike will not push it out of him. You need to be worse.

So you start with the chores, the insistent, never-ending list of chores. Laundry at six. Cooking at six and a half. By age seven, you rest all day, because the chores are in his hands.

He stops staring at you with hope at the age of seven. That is when you hit him on the head with the frying pan, a week after Vernon had broken his arm. The freakishness still happens though. As the boy cries himself to sleep, it rips out your soul. But his hair grew back, so you knew you had to do more. So you start hurting him. Both physically and mentally.

Vernon shoves him in the cupboard harder each time, when he realizes you will not stop him. The look of glee on his face disgusts you. _Sorry, Harry, so sorry._

Vernon yells at him when he first gets higher grades than Dudley. Inside you cheer. He inherited Lily's brains. But outside, you screech. You rant and rave. You see a single tear run down his cheek. _Don't comfort him. Be strong._

He never gets good grades again. He adapts to your actions. He holds himself back.

But the freakishness still happens. He lands on the roof of his school once. Still you hope though. Still you try to get it out of him.

When his eleventh birthday begins to approach, the letters come. When he comes into the kitchen holding a letter, your heart almost stops. _You had failed. _

You had made such plans for his birthday. A celebration for the first time. Dudley would have the hardest time adjusting, but he would have to, as would Vernon. You would explain it to them, and they would understand. You hoped they would. It didn't matter anymore though.

_You failed._

Vernon shoves him the cupboard, and you kick Dudley out of the room. You both whisper frantically.

"We won't let him go. That freak! He can't infect us!" Vernon's meaty hand clomps on the table. It's almost ludicrous how different your motivations were from his.

"We can't stop them. We ignored Lily's letter at first, because we thought it was a joke. But they just kept coming," you whisper, breathless. _He was going to die. You had failed. _

Vernon gasps when you first say Lily's name. It is the first time you have mentioned her name in eleven years. Since the incident. Since she was blown up.

He does not understand. You had used such a mask for oh so very long, that he would never understand. He thinks you hated her, but you loved her. It's them you hate. They took her away. On an adventure. You sneer just thinking it.

And she came back during breaks with freakishness. She was infected. She didn't want to talk to you anymore, not about normal stuff. It was transfiguration this, and charms that. You loved her, and it took her away. And it killed her.

He recovers from his shock a moment later. "Pet, we'll ignore them. They won't get through us. Not in my house," he says, full of manly pride.

You stand in a shocked stupor. _We can't hide. He's crazy. But we have to try. There's still a chance. Harry, oh Harry._

He takes your lack of response as confirmation, and says it's agreed.

The letters just keep coming though. They don't stop. In the egg carton, in the milk jug, through the mail box, in the cracks of the door… It's driving you mad.

You try to convince yourself to keep going. To keep fighting. _It's not fair. They can't take him. They can't have him. They can't destroy him, and us too. _But Vernon's attitude begins to weaken your resolve. Your instincts fade so slowly. So slowly, your protective instinct turns to real bitterness. You move him into Dudley's second bedroom, not out of love, but out of necessity. If they find you kept him in a cupboard, they would not be forgiving… or understanding.

The letters fly through the kitchen chimney. They won't stop. When Vernon drives you all off to hide, you do not argue. You sleep on the lumpy bed on a shack, in the middle of who knows what sea. And you hear the thunder and see the lightning strike around outside.

You drift off for a while. Your dreams are haunting. Lily, James, that evil wizard. You wish not to sleep.

Late in the night, midnight to be precise, a lightning strike outlines the figure of a… man in the doorway. He is one of them. You know it immediately. His freakishness shows in his appearance.

Nearly twenty minutes later the man – Hagrid, he called himself – leaves. And so does Harry. '_No, not Harry, anymore. The Boy. Only the Boy anymore.'_

The next months go normally. No freakishness. No worry. But, in the back of your mind, you wonder how much fun he is having. If he likes it. If he's abandoning you too, just like Lily did. It does not occur to you that you already abandoned him long ago.

In the summer months, his eyes shine with a new found exhilaration. The exhilaration breaks your heart. You've lost him. Vernon locks his trunk and owl away. He stays locked in his room. The freak. He looks so upset that he can't have his magic. It disgusts you. He's addicted to it, it seems. His wand, and his owl, and his magic, and his freakishness.

He ruins the dinner party that you had worked so hard on, so the bars go up. You do not complain. You no longer care. He abandoned you, he left your world. He deserves what he gets.

And so the years go on. You begin to focus on your own world and not on avoiding his. You ignore him, and focus on your dear son. You try not to think about how Harry would have done in your world. If you had succeeded, how would he be in a normal school?

Years later, four years after he had gone to the school, the magic infection spreads. Dudley is attacked, by dementors. You remember Lily mentioning them. And Voldemort is back, according to the boy. He tries to leave at first. But then, he wants to stay. And you let him, because you remember the last letter. He is only safe here. In the protection of the wards. He left you, and he abandoned you, but you can't let him die. Just like even after Lily abandoned you, you still didn't wish her dead. You still cried at the news of her death. You cried at what could have been.

The worlds are beginning to collide. You aren't the only one who notices. As the next two years pass, the news reports strange events. Freakish events. Disappearances, bridge collapses. It begins again. You remember when last it began. The last war. The one that killed her. That killed hope of your relationship with her recovering.

It's two years later now. He's about to turn seventeen. And the blood wards will fall. They come to take you, Dudley, and Vernon away. To take you to a safe house. You do not want to leave. Neither do Vernon or Dudley. This is your home. He was supposed to leave at seventeen, and everything was supposed to go back to normal. But now, Voldemort is back, and is not safe. So you must move. You may resent it, but you are not stupid. You know what will happen. You don't plan on joining Lily anytime soon, no matter how much you may miss her, deep within your heart.

As the moving day approaches, you pack up your belongings. You cannot bring everything, so you must choose the essentials. The necessities. You look through your boxes in your closet. As you search through piles, you pull out a photo album. A single photo slips out.

It is of Lily and you as children. A choked sob breaks out. You wonder who is crying, until a moment later, when you realize it is you. You sob louder. She is laughing in the picture. Her red hair is blowing in the wind. Her favorite oak tree from your backyard is in the background. You wail.

Harry walks by your room. He pokes his head in.

"I…heard a sound," he says by way of explanation. He is startled by your tears. He's not seen you cry, ever.

A moment later, you look up, and he is gone. You flip through the album. They are all from childhood. You had forgotten about this photo album. But it's still there. And you stare at your once best friend.

You wonder if you did the right thing. Should you have tried harder to push it out of him? Would it have saved him? He is going off to fight a war now. He is but a child. Without magic, he would be a regular teenager. _Did you fail him?_

Or should you have tried to accept him? It is a foreign thought to you. One you have not though since that first night he showed up on your doorstep. But, now, as you stare down at your sister's photos, at the memories of your past, it seems a simple choice.

You were so sure you had done the right thing. You were so sure he had abandoned you. But, as you stare at your long forgotten childhood, you can hear Lily's laugh. You can hear her tears, after you insulted her. You see it all in a new light.

And as you stare down at her auburn hair and emerald eyes, you realize you took the easy path, not the right one. You abandoned him. Not the other way around. There's no way to fix it though. It's too late. You know that, but still, it breaks your heart.


End file.
